Air Montenegro prepares for first winter season

Air Montenegro will enter its first winter season, which commences on October 31, with two aircraft, a handful of routes and plans to expand its network. Launched in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Montenegro’s national airline has been operating commercial flights for just under four months and has already handled over 70.000 passengers on over 850 operated flights. Speaking to EX-YU Aviation News, the carrier’s CEO, Predrag Todorović, noted, “We commenced operations with one of our own aircraft and one leased jet from German Airways. We selected this airline as we received favourable leasing terms and it was also the type that suited our fleet. As a result, we had a unified approach both to the passenger experience and our maintenance, since we had Embraers operating on all our routes. Our second aircraft has now entered into service and performed over 150 flights. The peak of the summer season has passed and the wet-leasing contract with German Airways has been concluded. Therefore, we will now continue to operate with two of our own aircraft, the 116-seat Embraer E195s. They fit our existing network”.

The airline’s aircraft have been operating without the company’s brand or corporate colours, however, Mr Todorović said a livery will be applied to its fleet soon. “Prior to the start of the summer season we were considering whether the aircraft should enter the fleet without a livery or prologue their return into service in order for them to receive our corporate colour scheme. We opted for the more practical option, which is for the aircraft to enter the fleet as soon as possible and start generating revenue. As a result, they were operated all-white this summer. In the coming period, we plan to paint them”. The airline’s brand identity (pictured above), was selected following an international competition and was designed by Moscow-based graphical designer Maksim Abruzov.

Since launching operations in June, Air Montenegro has introduced scheduled flights to Belgrade, Ljubljana, Istanbul, Banja Luka and Frankfurt, with the latter two having been halted since. The coronavirus pandemic and evolving travel restrictions continue to hamper the carrier. “We are following market conditions and are very dependent on circumstances that are outside of our control. We had several routes that we launched this summer, such as Frankfurt, Banja Luka, Istanbul, Ljubljana and of course Belgrade. The four routes, other that Belgrade, had an average cabin load factor of over 90%, which shows that our commercial department did a good job in selecting these destinations. However, winter is coming, and Montenegro has been placed on the red list for travel restrictions by many European countries [in response to Covid-19] and it directly affects our sales. For example, the moment these measures were introduced, Frankfurt, which was extremely successful for us, saw sales tumble immediately and we were forced to temporarily suspend operations to the German city because there are limitations in place for our nationals and we don’t want to fly empty”, Mr Todorović explained. He added, “We operated regular charter flights to Armenia over the summer, as well as numerous ad-hoc charters for sports teams. Whenever we have available capacity, we will operate charters because we have ideal aircraft for this segment”.

Air Montenegro CEO Predrag Todorović

Commenting on the carrier’s existing network and future growth, the CEO said, “We continue to fly to Istanbul, Ljubljana and Belgrade, however, we will focus on flights from Podgorica to Belgrade instead of Tivat over the winter. We are also monitoring the situation with the Russian market which is closed for Montenegro at the moment, and we are also considering several other destinations, which we will make public in due course”. He noted, “We are very open to cooperating with all airlines in the region in all spheres”.

EX-YU Aviation News

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